In The Thorney Island Murders the twelfth DI Horton novel by Pauline Rowson, Oyster Quays Marina and Gunwharf Quays are key locations. Horton is called to examine a gruesome catch by two fishermen: a human hand. Horton finds himself immersed in a complex case where everyone has a reason to lie and no one is who they seem. Assailed by doubts both in his personal and professional life, Horton desperately tries to keep his emotions under control and to focus on the case. The following extract is quoted with the kind permission of the author:

Sergeant Elkins indicated the dirty white plastic container lying on the floor of the cockpit. It looked to Horton like the type used for containing ice cream or margarine bought from the wholesalers only there were no labels or markings on it and inside he could see the vague shape of something that caused him a puzzled frown. Elkins nodded at PC Ripley, who, with latex covered fingers, prised open the lid. Horton started with surprise but it was Cantelli, peering over the side of the boat, who voiced his initial thoughts.

“My God! Is it real?”

“It’s real all right,” Elkins said solemnly. “You can see the arteries where it’s been severed at the wrist.” And the blackened exposed tissue, thought Horton, quickly recovering from his initial shock, staring at the human hand. The flesh, although a yellowish colour and emitting a sickly odour, was intact, no sea creatures or insect life had eaten into it, and there was no decomposition, which meant it couldn’t have been in the sea for very long. The container could have protected it he supposed, it looked fairly waterproof. There were slithers of water in the bottom but they could have been caused when the container had been opened by the two fishermen. The hand was fairly broad but the fingers were thin, ringless and quite long. A man’s hand he thought, though he’d leave that for Dr Gaye Clayton, the pathologist, to confirm. Mentally he measured it against his own hand and decided that whoever it had once been part of had been leaner than him. The nails were short, possibly bitten. He couldn’t see any tattoos and he wasn’t going to turn it over to find out if there were any on the palm.

“Could a boat propeller have sliced it off?” asked Cantelli.

“It could but that hardly accounts for it being in a container. And where’s the rest of him?”

Pauline Rowson was born in Fareham, but raised and educated in Portsmouth, where she developed an abiding love of the sea which ultimately led her to set her popular crime novels against its ever-changing backdrop. She is the author of twenty-two crime novels – some featuring the rugged and flawed Portsmouth based detective; four in the mystery thriller series featuring Art Marvik a former Royal Marine Commando who is now an undercover investigator for the UK’s National Intelligence Marine Squad (NIMS); and two standalone thrillers, In For The Kill and the award winning In Cold Daylight (both 2006), voted third in an online poll as the most popular novel for World Book Day 2008. She is also the author of the 1950s mystery series featuring Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Alun Ryga, who is sent out to solve baffling coastal crimes. Her latest novels are Death in the Dunes and Death in the Harbour (both 2020). Perhaps of most interest to Portsmouth readers are Pauline’s Solent Mystery Murders series, featuring D.I. Andy Horton and a host of locations in and around the city. The series of 17 novels includes The Portsmouth Murders The Langstone Harbour Murders and The Farlington Marsh Murders. Pauline is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Society of Authors.

Her crime novels are highly acclaimed in the UK, USA and Commonwealth and have been translated into several languages. Described as multi-layered, fast-paced, and compelling, hailed as ‘The Best of British Crime Fiction’, and commended by The Book Depository for ‘choosing locations and plot lines that are unique to her “marine mysteries” she has set herself apart from the tried and tested formulae within the genre’.

In America, her Portsmouth-based crime novels have been compared in a Booklist review to those ‘in the upper echelons of American procedurals, by Ed McBain and Joseph Wambaugh and their British counterparts, including the work of Peter Robinson and John Harvey’, and commended for introducing ‘many subtle variations on the procedural formula, including very interesting relationships between Andy and a couple of his superiors’.

Many of Pauline’s characters are drawn from her experiences of life in Portsmouth. From a working-class background, with limited access to books, Pauline is a passionate supporter of public libraries and attributes much of her success to having been introduced to a new small library as a child – The Alderman Lacey Library, Tangier Road, Portsmouth (opened 1964) which gave her a lifelong love of reading, fuelled her ambition to study and inspired her to become a writer. Rowson moved to 2, Teignmouth Road, Copnor at the age of 3, and attended Westover Infants School and Langstone Junior Girls School. Rowson failed the 11 plus but passed the 12 plus in the top tier and was offered a place at Southern Grammar School for Girls (now the Priory School), but, to her parents’ amazement turned down opting to attend Milton Secondary Modern Girls School (now a primary school), a small, excellent girls school that had a GCE O-Level stream. Top of the class throughout her time there, Rowson achieved seven O Levels, and three Grade 1 CSEs. She went on to Highbury College for A-levels but dropped out after a year to marry her husband Bob at the tender age of seventeen. Rowson and her husband, moved out of the city when Bob joined the RAF Police and then Hampshire Fire and Rescue as a firefighter. During this time, Rowson studied English and other subjects at night school, returning to Highbury College to achieve a HNC in Business Studies with Marketing, and gained a postgraduate Marketing Diploma at Southampton Solent University.

The Rowsons lived in Stanley Avenue, Copnor for a short time after returning to Portsmouth, and Rowson worked in Portsmouth Jobcentre, Lake Road, and the Professional and Executive Recruitment, Arundel Street, which was part of the Manpower Services Commission (Civil Service) until it was privatised in the 1980s. From 1992 until 2006, Rowson ran her own successful Marketing and PR business with many Portsmouth clients.

When Rowson isn't writing (which isn’t often) she can be found walking the coastal paths on the Isle of Wight and around Langstone and Chichester Harbours looking for a good place to put a (fictional) body.

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